Federal Budget
October 1, 2025 — John Hinderaker
The expected “shutdown” of the federal government has begun. Historically, shutdowns have followed a pattern: Democrats have claimed that the sky is falling, while Republicans have emphasized how limited they are (“temporary furlough of nonessential government workers”). The winners have been federal employees, who have wound up with a paid vacation. And, no matter the circumstances, most people have blamed Republicans. Things are different this time. You can see it
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October 1, 2025 — Bill Glahn
It’s true, I looked it up. According to this list, there have been 22 shutdowns of the Federal government dating back to Gerald Ford and 1976. As a young federal bureaucrat, I survived the 3-day shutdown of 1990, which they tell me occurred over a weekend in early October 1990. My only recollection of the event was visiting a national park that weekend, which was officially “closed.” We toured the
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September 25, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Traditionally, voters blame Republicans for government shutdowns (a misnomer, since the government doesn’t actually shut down) regardless of the circumstances. Of course, for some of us, it isn’t blame, it’s credit. Rasmussen asked likely voters whom they would blame if there is a government shutdown. Rasmussen headlines the plurality that would blame Congressional Democrats: “38% Would Blame Democrats for Shutdown.” But I am not sure that is the most salient
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September 5, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for August and the year to date is out. BLS writes, Federal government employment continued to decline in August (-15,000) and is down by 97,000 since reaching a peak in January. (Employees on paid leave or receiving ongoing severance pay are counted as employed in the establishment survey.) The overall report for August showed a job gain of 22,000,
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August 15, 2025 — John Hinderaker
The New York Times sees a dark cloud in every silver lining, when we have a Republican president. Especially Donald Trump. Thus, today’s Times email headlined: “The Stock Market Is Getting Scary. What You Should Do.” The Dow and the S&P are both at or near record highs. So, what is scary about that? The Times subhed offers a clue: “Stocks Keep Climbing Past Bad News.” What is the bad
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August 14, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals decided the case of Global Health Council et al. v. Trump et al. on a 2-1 vote. The case arose out of the freeze on U.S. Agency for International Development spending that President Trump ordered in the earliest days of his administration. The plaintiffs are organizations that received grants from USAID, and allege that they have been damaged because the administration
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August 1, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a nonprofit company, has decided to shut down. Reporting on itself, from PBS, CPB says it is shutting down after being defunded by Congress, targeted by Trump. The recission of its current appropriation by an act of Congress was the death blow. The refusal of the Senate to provide new funding was the final insult. From The Hill newspaper, Senators forgo Corporation for Public
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July 20, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Until the big beautiful bill passed, the federal government was not able to review Medicaid data to determine whether beneficiaries were claiming benefits in more than one state. Amazing, but apparently true. The Unleash Prosperity Hotline explains: Acting on new authority from the One Big Beautiful Bill, CMS has scanned the Medicaid rolls, and found that an astonishing 2.8 million people were enrolled in either Medicaid programs in multiple states
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July 15, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Democrats have launched an over-the-top onslaught against the Big Beautiful Bill, claiming among other things that it will kill many thousands of Americans. The main focus of their attacks has been the modest changes in Medicaid, which do not reduce benefits but are intended to cut down on fraud and abuse. Are these common-sense provisions really unpopular, as the Democratic press would have it? My organization polled this question, along
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July 14, 2025 — John Hinderaker
As Bill Glahn noted earlier, President Trump won a victory today in the Supreme Court. The case grows out of the administration’s attempt to shut down, or at least cut back on, the Department of Education. Toward that end, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon laid off something like half of the Department’s employees, and reassigned some of the Department’s functions to other agencies. That resulted in a lawsuit in the
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July 3, 2025 — John Hinderaker
So the big beautiful bill has passed, as sensible observers knew it would. Apart from the benefits of the bill itself–extending the 2017 tax cuts was absolutely mandatory, and it has some other good provisions as well–its passage has a couple of additional benefits. First, we get to enjoy liberal angst. Democrats did all they could to fend off the inevitable, or at least to look to their base like
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July 1, 2025 — John Hinderaker
J D Vance cast the 51st vote this morning, as the administration’s big beautiful reconciliation bill eked through the Senate. Three Republican senators–Thom Tillis, Susan Collins and Rand Paul–joined all Democrats in voting against the bill. I don’t think they would have done so, if their votes had been needed for passage. The bill absolutely has to pass, since if it doesn’t, the biggest tax increase in American history will
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June 18, 2025 — John Hinderaker
In case you are wondering, the Big Beautiful Bill is working its way through the Senate. I assume that it will pass, in some version, because if it doesn’t we will see the biggest tax increase in American history on January 1, and no Republican will vote for that. Meanwhile, how does the Senate version of the bill compare with the House version? Here are some highlights, per Stephen Moore
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June 12, 2025 — John Hinderaker
An epic Twitter misfire from the office of Amy Klobuchar: If my social media team did this to me, I’d throw a stapler at them. https://t.co/xyEZYkTNfy — tedfrank (@tedfrank) June 12, 2025 Take her food away? Well, it’s a thought… And are Congressional Republicans really trying to cut the SNAP (food stamp) program? I know there are efforts to take high-calorie sodas off the list of subsidized foods, which might
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June 9, 2025 — John Hinderaker
There has been a lot of confusion about the “big beautiful bill,” with many understandably having the impression that it is the whole story with regard to federal spending and, specifically, budget cuts. Happily, that is not the case. This is from Stephen Moore’s Unleash Prosperity Hotline: Here’s what House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters over the weekend: Everyone here wants to reduce spending. All of us want to return
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June 6, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday’s sudden war between Elon Musk and President Trump was bizarre, and, sadly, represents a setback for the administration and the conservative movement. It is hard to understand how their relationship can have unraveled so suddenly. Here are a few thoughts: * I blame Elon. His attack on the “big beautiful bill” was ill-informed and over the top, and his subsequent attacks on Trump were embarrassing–to Musk, not to Trump.
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June 5, 2025 — John Hinderaker
A few weeks ago, 60 Minutes, to its credit, did a segment with Linda Miller, who spent ten years in the Government Accountability Office and wrote a rulebook on preventing fraud in federal programs. Miller says there is vastly more fraud in federal spending than people realize: Last year, the Government Accountability Office released a report estimating the federal government loses as much as $521 billion a year to fraud.
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